dissidiacalamitasinfinitafandomcom-20200215-history
Story:Kings of Strife/Part 2
Part Two The bag with the crystal made a dull thump as it landed on the wooden table. “There’s your bounty. Inusia’s Crystal.” Silverius rubbed his shoulder idly as he looked down at his employer seated in front of him. All around the two, shrouded in the shadows of the meeting room, were fellow members of the mercenary organization. “You were caught. Word has started to get out of your theft.” The employer spoke softly but his voice brought with it power. He might as well have slapped Silverius in the face with his observation. “I broke into the most guarded place in the country. I’m not a miracle worker.” “No,” the employer retorted, “You are a failure.” Silverius’ brow twitched with irritation. He forced himself not to move his hand towards the hilt of the gunblade belted to his waist. “I did what you told me to do. The Crystal is yours, and the fifteen thousand dolarov are mine.” He held his hand out in expectation. "There will be no further pay.” A stunned silence rang in the dark room. The employer hadn’t moved or even grabbed the bag, but he seemed to tower above everyone in attendance with his unassuming presence but booming authority. “…What do you mean, there will be no further pay?” The ache from his arm and back served as catalysts for the mercenary’s temper, but there was no mistaking the amount of firewood that the employer had stoked into his fire. The idea of not getting paid after all he had done was just inconceivable. Now the employer sighed. Again he had an entirely condescending tone that only irritated Silverius further. “I do not have time to repeat myself. I was told that you stole the Crystal even before you arrived, which means the Inusians know as well. You did not complete your job of a stealthy infiltration, which means you have failed, which means you will not be paid.” The final words of his explanation scorched Silverius’ face and allowed a red hot blush of anger to form on his angular face. The mercenary snatched the small burlap sack from the table and gripped it with white knuckles. His arm shook. “Don’t you give me any of that bullshit! Do you know how hard it was for me to get in that place? Do you know how hard it was to escape?” “I provided you with all necessary materials for a successful mission. Failure was not an option.” “Every time a word comes out of your dusty old mouth, I get pissed off and want to shove my fist into it!” The employer did not move nor respond, but the mercenary could almost feel his dead, ancient eyes studying him and glaring into his soul. “Now you take this stupid porcelain sack of shit and pay up or I sell it to whoever has the highest price!” None of them moved. Still seething, Silverius whirled from the presence of the employer and started to walk purposefully out of the warehouse. The employer, as always, did not move from his vigil. He lay down his head slightly and crossed together his two articulate hands like branches from a gnarled old tree and allowed them to mix as roots. As Silverius walked, the employer smply said one word: “Scales.” Silverius froze. He was expecting this. The moment after the employer spoke, all of the men standing guard in the room burst forward into action. Silverius anticipated this, and as soon as they moved, he threw the bag with the Crystal into the air. Four men rushed him with swords raised. Silverius forced his gunblade off his belt smoothly and spun while he lowered his sense of gravity, cutting the knees of two men in the act. As they fell with cries of pain, he kicked them away in succession. Next the two men behind him both moved to stab him with their thin swords, but Silverius saw them coming and parried both swords away. By now the Crystal’s bag fell back downwards, and he caught it with an arm raised; the momentum allowed him to swing the heavy jewel and hit one of the standing Scales in the head, sending him reeling. Silverius simply shoulder-tackled the other onto the table where the employer sat still, turned, and ran from the room. The fight had been quiet, mostly, and little suspicion was being raised in the building so far. He didn’t allow himself to run until he left the warehouse of the organization; from there, he started to run full-tilt. As soon as he got onto the streets of Morshia City, Silverius knew he had made a grave mistake. The number one rule for a mercenary was never to betray a man who paid you, but he had broken that rule… mostly. The Serpent Society that he worked for basically held the criminal underground of Morshia in the palm of its hand. No corner of the city was safe from a Scale on a mission, and it even held enough sway to keep itself out of trouble with the government and the police. While working for the Serpent Society, Silverius’ pay had been steady, his life had been protected, and his dream was on track to becoming a reality. But now he was an outcast. There was no doubt about it, Silverius knew as he ran aimlessly through the thin streets and forested squares of Morshia. He would have to leave the city. Nowhere would he be safe here, not in his own home or with his colleagues or even in hiding. They would find him. They always did. As he ran past a startled pair of bystanders, Silverius turned and looked behind him. A group of four men, all in dark clothing like him, ran towards him. Pursuers. Scales. Just as he turned, one of them shot a rifle at him, scrambling the bystanders into panic and almost hitting Silverius in the leg. He ducked down an alley and started running in a completely different direction. The mercenary began to panic. They showed no mercy and gave no handicaps. The Leader had spoken, and now they would ruthlessly kill one of their own without delay. ‘Just five minutes ago,’ Silverius thought to himself as he pushed past confused people on the street, ‘I was a part of that group. I would have done the same thing.’ Killing was nothing to him. That was how one had to be to live a life like this. No time to worry about what was next. That could come later, if he survived. His instinct told him to run and escape somehow, but Silverius knew this was only a temporary solution. They would find him again. For now, it would be easier to get somewhere secluded, hopefully losing the trail of the Scales on the way, and eliminate his pursuers. Then he would have peace of mind for a while, and the ability to hide and escape the city much easier than if they chased him. A crowded market on the south side of town lay ahead of him, and beyond that were a set of unused train tracks and a few empty streets. He ran towards the crowd of scared-looking people with anticipation. ‘I’ll be safer here. They wouldn’t just let loose guns into a throng of innocent people’. He was wrong. Just after he jostled his way into the thick crowd of sweating people and product stalls, a rattle of guns blasted through the humid air, and screams were heard. “Shit!” Silverius audibly cursed as moving became almost impossible, now that the entire crowd ran from the Scales. Finally, after making his way through the panicking crowd, Silverius jumped over the railroad with haste. Bullets ricocheted into the heavy iron tracks beneath him, but he kept running into the streets with his head lowered. This was a run for his life, and turning around to see how close his pursuers were would have him lose it. Inside the tight streets in close range, he would have the advantage – but here, his life was almost forfeit. The gods smiled on Silverius this day, and he made it to the streets without incident. He whirled down an alley at the first chance he got, and threw the bag with the Crystal into a nearby open dumpster. Here, it would only slow him down. Footsteps pounded on the hard concrete of Morshia’s streets, and Silverius turned as he drew his blade again. There were only a few seconds until gunshots lit the alley up, he realized; with instants to spare, he ran and hid behind the large dumpster he had just deposited the Crystal into. Just as he predicted, the Scales turned into the alley and shot indiscriminately. Once they realized that he was not visible, however, they audibly lowered their rifles and paused. ‘Now!’ Silverius clicked the safety off his weapon and poked out of his cover spot. Four Scales stood at the opening of the alley shoulder to shoulder; aiming was not necessary in order to hit one of them. His gunblade was the equivalent to a high-tech fusion of a longsword and a single-shot rifle, and all he needed was a single shot to the face to kill one of the Scales with a rifle in his arms. The surviving gunman struggled to quickly reload, and the other two raised their swords as they raced to Silverius. He shot at the other gunman, hitting him in his chest and sending him backwards, before rolling out from behind the dumpster and spinning to meet the other two swords with his own. They remained in this embrace for a tense moment before Silverius pushed forward and sent the swordsmen reeling. Now he was on the offensive. Using the momentum from his swing and the enemy’s small retreat, Silverius began to rise up, slashing his sword upward into the air with him. The tip of his gunblade cut through the neck of one Scale; at the top of his swing, Silverius reversed his blade with both hands, decapitating the other. He took a moment to catch his breath as the blood of his enemies drenched him. The thrill of battle kept his heart pumping and his ears ringing, but he couldn’t allow himself to get caught up in the excitement. ‘I still have to escape the city,’ Silverius thought as he grabbed the small burlap sack with the Crystal from the dumpster. Before he could go into the street, Silverius heard sirens. ‘Not good.’ The police rarely got involved in mercenary business in this side of town due to it being Serpent Society territory, but these Scales had likely taken it too far. The sirens were close… Silverius wouldn’t be able to get far before the police arrived, and there was no way he wouldn’t be accused for the murder of the four Scales. He had nowhere to run. There was a motive, witnesses, and an organization of sellswords who wanted him dead, and all this because he took some jewel through the sewers. ‘The sewers…’ The mercenary turned 360 degrees, his head whirling about in search of a manhole. Finally he found one across the street, on a sidewalk littered with piss, fallen leaves, and a discarded beer can. Silverius ran to it, taking this time to put his bloody sword back on his belt, and started to pick up the heavy sewer cover. It took him longer than it should have, thanks to the blood and sweat slicking his hands, but he did manage to prop it open just long enough for him to start sliding down into the sewers below, and just fast enough to have the cover placed back where it belonged right before the police cars started swerving into the blood-covered street. Instantly the underground was much quieter and more peaceful than the world above. Silverius fell down a few feet once he jumped down the manhole and landed right in the dirty waters of the sewer with a loud splash. Once he landed, the mercenary stayed crouched with his hand held over his blade handle for a long, tense moment. Waiting. Preparing. Dreading. Eventually he convinced himself that he would not be followed, not down here. Silverius climbed onto the concrete sidewalk bordering the disgusting river of waste and started walking west, towards the closest edge of the city. Going this way, he would soon reach the upper world again through an opening that let out right outside the border between Inusia and Shorica, the closest land nation. Once he got past the barely-guarded border, he would traverse through the forests of Shorica, and would be free within days. Silverius couldn’t stop his heart from beating hard in his chest. The thrill of battle energized him, as did the bliss of a successful escape, but most of all he was frustrated, with himself and his career, if it could be called that. All he wanted in life was a quiet home in the mountains – and money. Mountains of dolarov for him to spend how he saw fit. But nothing had worked out the way he wanted, not ever, and this life was his destiny. Silverius’ father had said he was born with a sword in his hand, and that the sword was sharp enough to cut open his mother and kill her once he was born. Not even ten years later, Silverius killed his father with his own hands. The sword of fate was sharp. ***** ‘I’m not normal. How did I get here? Everything hurts. Why am I here?’ The girl had no answers for herself. She looked around once she gained consciousness. There were no clothes on her body, and she was tied to a peeling chair of brown wood. Around her was a very small, crudely built room without light or furniture. Water dripped from the top of the concrete wall, and rust mixed with large cobwebs in every corner. ‘Where am I?’ She looked at herself in the mirror. Her own body was unfamiliar, with its small, perky breasts and pale skin. The rope around her arms were tight, and she had no energy to move her feet and attempt to stand. Her stomach rumbled. ‘How long has it been since I’ve eaten? How long have I been here?’ She remembered nothing before this moment, nothing but illusions and dreams. Nightmares. In the long, endless void of awareness and memories she had before this moment, she remembered only phantoms. Two eyes in the darkness, red and golden then red again, and a demon with blond hair. Pursuing her. Chasing her. Attacking her. ‘Who am I?’ This was the only question she had an answer for. Maria Zorphan. That was her name. Where did it come from? Why did she know that, and nothing else? For some reason, that answer was in her head, and would not leave it. Maria Zorphan was her name. Maria Zorphan. Maria Zorphan. She was so tired. Her stomach rumbled without food in it, and her thin body trembled in the cold. Why didn’t she have clothes on? Who put her here? Maria sat without answers for what could have been hours before she started to scream. The room was dark, and the darkness brought her fear. She couldn’t move to defend herself against the unknown, and she had no clear knowledge in her mind, so all she could do was scream. The action was therapeutic. It drove the curious spiders around her feet back to their cobwebs, it cleared the fog from her mind with focus on this one action, and it gave her the hope of rescue. Escape. Safety. Was there even a world out there, beyond the stone door to the side of the mirror? Would she ever experience it, or would she die here, in this small and leaking room? For some reason that terrified her more than the darkness: the idea that she would die, soon, and nobody would ever know the difference. The world had existed long before she opened her eyes in here, and it would only continue to exist once she closed them for the last time. She didn’t think anyone would come save her, not really. She could be in a prison. She could be in a faraway exile. If anything, the screams only brought pain and rawness to her throat, but she did not stop. Maria could not stop, or the hope would go away, and then she would have only the ignorance and the fear. ‘I am Maria Zorphan. I will never be free. But I want to be free.’ The concept of possibility was somewhat new to her, but it was empowering. It was her god. She kept screaming for as long as she had breath, in prayer and worship to this god of hers. Eventually she could fathom it no more, and hung her head with heavy breaths. Her long, wavy dark violet hair cascaded down her back and shoulders like melting lava. That was it, then, Maria concluded. This was going to be where she died. She closed her eyes, allowing her body to lose all of its tension, and relaxed. If this was the way she was going to die, Maria decided that it would come to her peacefully, without resistance. The handle to the door began to shudder. When she heard the disturbance, Maria’s head jerked up and she looked at the door with wide red eyes. After a long period of shuffling and shaking, the handle to the door turned slowly, and the stone door opened inward. The outside of the room wasn’t much brighter than the inside, but there was a light difference, and it forced Maria to clench her eyes shut from the discomfort. She opened them again, and a man stood in front of her. The two of them stared into each other’s eyes, both wide without comprehenshion, for what felt like an eternity. Soon Maria came to her senses, and she looked over the man. His black jacket and white pants were covered in blood, and there was a blade on his waist. If Maria’s throat wasn’t bone dry, she would have screamed; as it was, all she could do was flinch and shrink away from him. “Hey, hey, relax, I’m not going to hurt you.” The man took a step forward, but Maria whimpered. He stopped and looked down. “Where are your clothes? What are you doing here?” Maria struggled to return moisture to her vocal cords. “I don’t know. I woke up here, and…” That was really all the explanation she had to give him. The man sighed and shook his head, jostling his rough black hair around his face. “I don’t have time for this…” He continued walking towards her and reached a hand down to his blade. Maria flinched again, but he shushed her. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.” His hand moved like lightning, and before she could realize what was happening, his blade was unhooked from his belt and raised into the air. Sharp metal stained with blood flashed in the darkness as the man slashed downwards. Maria clenched her eyes closed and flinched once again, but after a dull sound, she recognized the auditory cue of the man returning his sword to his belt. She peeked her eyes open and looked down, only to find her rope on the floor around her feet. With disbelief, Maria moved her hands. There were callouses where the rope was tied tightly, and her skin was red and indented from them, but she was free. She looked up to the man, speechless and eyes overflowing with wonder. “You’re free now. You can go home,” the man said as he unzipped his black jacket and pulled his arms out of it. Once he took it off, the man tossed it over Maria and turned away towards the door. The garment covered her chest and brought her warmth, but as Maria pulled it close around her bare breasts, her face contorted with puzzlement. “I have no home.” He froze. Maria tried to stand, but moving was painful and her legs were almost numb. Still she had no energy, and now she had nowhere to go. She was free, but at what cost? Where did a prisoner go when their prison was the only home they ever knew? The man looked back at Maria over his shoulder. She felt his gaze and turned away, her eyes tearing up with frustration. Weak. She felt weak, both because of her dependence on him and her own quickness to cry. Minutes ago she had accepted death fearlessly, and now she cried at the thought of seeing what was outside these four walls? “I’ll find my way out. Thank you, sir…” She gripped onto the edges of the chair tightly and attempted to push herself up, but her knees buckled and she plopped right back down in the chair. In the moment she closed her eyes, Maria saw those eyes again – those red eyes, piercing and dark, before they flashed into golden and back into red. How were they changing colors? They were watching her, seeing her every move. Why did that disturb her? Why did that frighten her? ‘Despicable.’ The voice fueled her, the voice that was hers but still foreign in her own mind. She wanted to know why she was placed here, beneath all the world, and tied up. She wanted to know whose eyes those were, and who was pursuing her in her dreams, and who gave her the name Maria Zorphan. And she didn’t need a man to help her with that. Maria stood on shaking legs and shivering bones and wrapped the waist-length jacket around her. It covered her breasts but not the sweet spot between her legs, so she held a hand over it shyly as she turned and looked to the man who saved her with burning eyes. “I will find my home,” she said, with all of her anxieties holding bass beneath her voice. She took a step forward, and then another, until her legs gave out beneath her. She was so tired, and as she fell, Maria felt her consciousness slipping from her and the red eyes glowing brighter in the back of her mind. The last thing she saw before they took up all of her was the man, turning and running towards her with open arms. ...End of Part Two. <- Previous Page | Main Page | Next Page ->